I was talking to my mum the other day about something and nothing and happened to say, ‘You remember my GCSE Art coursework don’t you?’. Of course, this was a stupid thing to say as my mum remembered it so well she gave a small whimper of fear and shot me a look that almost said, ‘Why would you bring this up again after all these years? Why?’.
My GCSE Art coursework has gone down as the stuff of legends in our family. You think coursework and like most people, may imagine a long, drawn out project with time spent researching and collecting pictures and ideas for ‘mood boards’ and reading up on artists who you feel are an influence and examining their techniques and ethos and approach to their work. Well, you’d be wrong. For me GCSE Art coursework was going to my mum two nights before it was due to be handed in and asking if she could help me with some homework. And by help I meant sit down, do half of the hard slog and at no point whatsoever get any credit for it. Because you love me.
But sat down she did. For two solid evenings we cut and glued and drew and painted and mercilessly ripped off various pop artists along the way (sorry Andy, apologies Jasper…) until finally we came up with the goods and my project was ready to be handed in, on time and looking like the well planned and thoughtful coursework folder it wasn’t.
I still have various bits and bobs from that project hidden away in various corners of my flat and my mum’s attic but one piece – probably the bit that I was proudest of – mysteriously vanished somewhere between handing it in to my art teacher and asking for it back a month or so later. It was an oil on canvas tribute to this painting by Roy Lichtenstein that was so completely different to his other work, so monochromatic in a sea of cartoon colours that I was instantly drawn to it,
It’s one of the many things that I’ve lost along my way in life that I always think back to, like the plaid shirt I had when grunge was at it’s peak and would love to be able to wear now, and the Get-Along Gang clothes stand that went AWOL when we moved house when I was thirteen, and my Pulp CD that a friend burned (burt?) for me but didn’t label and is now lost amongst 50 identical unlabelled and possibly blank CDs… Anyway, I digress.
The reason I mention it is because that most recent time I imagined my old art teacher eating his tea with a passable Lichenstein rip-off hanging over him in the background I decided not to grind my teeth and wail at the sky as usual, but do something about it. So I made up this,
and I’m really rather pleased with it. So there you go, old Art teacher of mine. You can’t go and lose this one can you?
I like it! Make sure you hold on tight to this one. I have a similar sad tale about my art course work at school. I really did work hard on mine and was very proud of it. It got sent off to be assessed at the end of the year, along with all the other art work from every school in Scotland. If you wanted it back, you had to pay £5. Otherwise it would be shredded. Pretty mean, if you ask me, but I paid the £5 and waited… All the other artwork came back to school except mine… Turns out the school had made a list of everyone who’d paid the money. All the names fitted on one side of A4 paper, except mine which was printed on the back. Whoever filled in the forms never turned the paper over when they were making the order and by the time they realised their mistake ALL my work had been through the shredder! I still smart at the thought. I especially resented it years later when I was thinking of trying to get into art school. That is one of the upsides of the story though – I can pretend that the work was good enough to get me into art school and nobody will ever know any different!
Laura, that’s terrible! We should start a support group or something, share our pain with others… x
Fun post to read!
and lovely embroidery!
x